Damn... high house prices might be enough to keep the non-Boden set out of Muswell Hill, but what can you do about extra-terrestrials? Apparently fed up with visiting the snaggle-toothed, tailgating inbred of the country, people-of-other-planets are pointing their UFOs at a more chi-chi environment. So often, in fact, that - according to this - the people of Muswell Hill have informally renamed the nabe.

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Two bedrooms, lots of light, nice internal architecture and a bed raided on perspex... bestselling chick lit author Adele Parks is selling her Evershed Walk (Chiswick) flat. It's with KFH, £1.295m. Particulars here.

If these walls could talk... are you pleased to see a US edition, or is that a gun in your pocket? [June 11, 2010]

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Back in 2007, we reported on plans by Declan "Dec" Donnelly to renovate his Chiswick home so that it would match the Chiswick home of Anthony "Ant" McPartlin, which can be found, conveniently, a few doors away. The neighbours weren't happy, was the story, and I'm not surprised. A whole street can be tainted by that kind of weirdness. I didn't think Dec would get away with it... but apparently - and a little bit creepily - he has:

Just so visitors can tell the difference, Ant's is on the left and Dec's is on the right - the positions the pair religiously follow in their public appearances.

And there's nothing like mock-Edwardian when you want everyone to know you've arrived.

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That 66 inch-wide house on Goldhawk Road is back on the market, after four years. It was once home to photographer Juergen Teller and a senior Winkworths agent (at different times), and it's certainly unique... five storeys, a small garden, terrace, and some say the skinniest in the country. It's with Faron Sutaria, with a guide price of £549,950 (particulars here).

Technorati Tags: London, property, real estate

Haart's London Property Index is showing a 22% rise since January, the average price of a London property rocketing from £152,207 to £194, 052. Hotspots? Blackheath Village, Southgate and Willesden Green. More here.

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Colonel Gaddafi's son Saif al-Islam Gaddafi has bought a plush pad in Hampstead. Here's how the Mail on Sunday managed to paint a picture of a venue fit for a Bond villain:

The neo-Georgian eight-bedroom property bought by Saif al-Islam Gaddafi in a secluded road in Hampstead, North London, boasts a swimming pool, sauna room, Jacuzzi and suede-lined cinema room where he will be able to monitor world events.

... while stroking a long-haired white cat. He might choose to watch Laurel & Hardy films while he's in there, too, but they're probably right. He'll mainly use it to monitor world events. What's the country coming to?

Meanwhile, it gets worse. Over at the Telegraph, that final bastion of opera-loving, Jag-driving, University town murder-solving Englishness Inspector Morse has had his elegant home redesigned redneck-style by a bunch of hapless squatters:

Members of the Inspector Morse Appreciation Society regularly travel to see the historic house, which was once worth well over £2 million. But they have been horrified to find that the one-time delightful 19th century mansion now lies derelict with boarded-up windows and doors a far cry in from its TV heyday. The Polish squatters stripped valuable fittings from the house and have left its overgrown gardens strewn with discarded junk furniture and other rubbish.

Interestingly, the house isn't in Oxford, it's in Ealing.

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"What downturn?" asks Jasper Conran. His Chiswick Mall (those nice ones by the river... occasional flooding, a few good pubs, huge bay windows, views over an island) house has recently sold for £12.5m, breaking its own record (£7.25m) as the biggest Chiswick deal ever. Walpole House is set back from the road... it's an ex-home for vagrant girls and an ex-boys' school (the model, apparently, for Miss Pinkerton's Academy). Conran bought it just two years ago. Asking prices in Chiswick have been hit harder than most. According to Land Registry documents Conran sold the house on May 30.

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The Telegraph takes a peak inside Chiswick's Oddfellows Hall... a Victorian building, built by the masons, and featuring four entrances and four addresses. It's been used as a wedding venue and an artist's studio, before the current owner - an estate agent/property developer - snapped it up for £385,000 in 2002 (I know, I know) and gave it a radically modern re-fit. Now it's all plasma screen in the bathroom ceiling, under-floor heating and cinema rooms. What's it doing in the Telegraph? It's for rent... £3,900 a month, from Featherstone Leigh. I can't find Japanese water feature nor wet room of it on the FL website, but luckily you can see more pictures here.

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An Acton man has been put on the sex offenders register for seven years after being found guilty of wiring a camera between his bedroom and the communal bathroom, so that he could watch his flatmates [not pictured] showering. His plan was apparently scuppered when one resident discovered a lens in the wall, and followed a wire up the outside of the building to the man's attic room.

[via Londonist]

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According to a survey by Savills, the following addresses are potential candidates for future primeness. The important driver is an influx of professionals combined with nice existing stock, preferably Victorian or Edwardian homes. The advantages to being "prime"? If you've been reading the Rat and Mouse at all over the last few years you'll know that prime London tends to outgrow the rest of London, indeed the rest of the UK. So here goes:

• Tooting ("the new Notting Hill")
• White City
• East Acton
• Tulse Hill
• Camberwell
• Fortis Green
• Finchley
• Brondesbury
• Willesden Green
• Cricklewood

[via the Times]

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